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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26006329">His Crooked Nose</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortons_Salt/pseuds/Mortons_Salt'>Mortons_Salt</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Blind Character, Blind Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Desolation Avatar Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Other, Self-Mutilation, i was just yearning at three in the morning, it's minor but it's there, tbh desolation tim is barely there and idk if i'll expand on this fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:16:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>918</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26006329</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortons_Salt/pseuds/Mortons_Salt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jon blinds himself it's an uneventful thing.</p>
<p>When Jon hears a knock at his door in the middle of the night, he thinks he might die again.</p>
<p>When Jon runs a thumb down the line of a nose that never quite healed right, he recognizes his old friend.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist &amp; Tim Stoker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>270</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>His Crooked Nose</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Jon blinds himself, it’s a surprisingly uneventful affair.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He settles into his desk chair, and lets all the thoughts that had swarmed his head take over.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He bloodies two pencils in the breaking of his chains. He dropped the first and couldn’t find where it had gone.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He regrets not calling someone first, because now he can’t see the keypad on the phone. His head pulses in pain. The best he can do is scream and hope someone comes to check.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Basira calls an ambulance quickly enough.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>After that… Things were oddly normal for him. He didn’t Know things anymore. He felt hungry in a way that could be sated by microwaved leftovers. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He felt like himself again. His body was his own.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That’s not to say it was perfect. There were learning curves, of course. He still struggled with waking up and opening his eyes to see… Nothing.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It also made it incredibly difficult to find a weapon when someone began to knock on his door in the middle of the night.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Maybe it was Daisy, back after another nightmare craving comfort after six months all alone. Maybe it was Martin, finally ready to face the fact that the Lonely was dangerous, that he missed Jon the way Jon missed him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He felt around his room, looking for anything to use all the same.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It was natural to be paranoid after what he’d been through.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The knocking persists, and Jon finds his old walking cane. He hadn’t had to use it since after the Unknowing. The Beholding made his body healthy in a way it never had been before.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was quite happy to have ruined that with two pencils lying on his desk.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He made his way through the apartment as quietly as possible, feeling along the wall, cane held tight in one hand.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hello?” Someone asks, “Does Jon Sims still live here?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They knocked again, louder, like they didn’t care if whoever was in the apartment noticed.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Well, that seemed to be the point of knocking.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jon hated knocking.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He stands in front of the door, waiting for the voice. It sounded so… </span>
  <em>
    <span>Familiar.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Jon could swear he knew it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He was too tired to worry about placing the voice though. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Jon?” It asks, “Please? This is the only place I could think to come to. Martin won’t pick up his phone, and I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>going back to the institute.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Oh. That was who it was.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Tim?” he asks.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah! It’s Tim! Jon, is that you?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He still doesn’t open the door.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Because even if he cut himself off from the Eye, any other entity could still come after him. Because Tim was meant to be dead. There was no way that was Tim.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Jon?” It asks, “Jon, please. You know it’s me! Just check through the peephole or something, I dunno. I’m Tim!”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“...I can’t,” He says. His hand rests on the door knob.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What? Yes, you can. Just check and let me in. I promise, it’s me. I’ll explain everything.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No, Tim, I physically can’t.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>With that, he throws the door open, slightly shocked to find it already unlocked.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a clatter of metal hitting the wooden floor in his apartment, and Jon has a suspicion Tim had stopped waiting for him to open the door.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“...Oh,” Tim whispers.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He doesn’t know why he opened the door. It was likely an awful idea. He’d gotten himself out of the frying pan, and decided to throw himself into the first fire he saw.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But he hears Tim stand, and brush a too warm hand against his own.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“No one believes it’s me,” He says, “No one I knew. They refuse. They’re all telling me they saw my name in the obituary.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“...Yeah. You were declared dead, Tim.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“How long?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“... Six months and then some,” Jon says.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Six months without me around? How’d you survive?” He says, voice light.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Well, I was in a coma.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tim is quiet.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Besides all that, who’s to say I even believe you?” Jon asks, “You died in the Unknowing. How do I know you aren’t some left over mannequin?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Because plastic melts pretty easily,” He mumbles.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>And suddenly his hand is on Jon’s, and Jon’s hand against his face.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Just… Can you see me? Like this? Can you tell who I am?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The cane clatters on to the ground, and Jon brings his hand up to cup Tim’s face.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He runs his fingers across his jaw, his thumb against his crooked nose. He feels the slit in his eyebrow that he'd shaved there during a drunken night out and decided to keep. His pinkie skims a pockmark just next to his ear, and that’s when Jon just knows it has to be him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He starts to cry.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Hey, I can’t be </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> ugly,” Tim says. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>But his voice is thick, and Jon can feel a wetness against his fingers that dries quickly on the burning heat of Tim’s skin.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Your hands are cold,” He says.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re warm,” Jon mumbles, “Have you got a fever?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“...Something like that.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He runs his finger down the bridge of his nose again, tracing the jagged line that never healed properly.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“You never did tell me how you broke your nose,” Jon says.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“If you let me in, I’ll tell you over a cup of tea.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He does let him in, but he ignores the tea in favor of burying himself in Tim’s too hot shoulder and hoping it wasn’t all a dream.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>haha. hahahahha. hahhahhahhaha. </p>
<p>In short. I was yearning. I was feeling hopelessly romantic again. So here we are.</p>
<p>Idk why I wrote this, but I hope you enjoyed</p></blockquote></div></div>
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